How my greeting changed from “Hey Carloe!” to just, “... Bro.”

I guess I should start with how I became friends with this delinquent. I think I was immature back then, but luckily I’ve gotten “better”. I was always a little shy, but not one of those people who trip up on every word they speak and avoid presentations at all costs. 

Carloe was that popular kid that did mainstream things to climb the social hierarchy of elementary school. Fortnite? Roblox? Yugi-oh? He could talk for at least an hour about it if you choose. Why would he “stoop down” to a level like mine, who only knew, much less, talked about “dead” games like Minecraft and Tetris, and who also only got a phone only as late as 8th grade? I don’t know; my best guess is that he wanted to test his intelligence with me. I was always called a “show-off” for just correcting the teacher on some slightly wrong information here and there. “Know-it-all” with a negative connotation. 

Anyway, it didn’t start like that. One year, our teacher was one of those nice ones who let you sit in any seat for the first few months, before everybody got too chaotic with their friends and had to be assigned seats. I sat next to William, who was my best friend that was similar to Carloe, and Carloe also sat next to him. It was only natural for us to hang out as a group. Carloe seemed to have some connection with every group. Usually, it was negative with girls and positive with boys.

However, outside of school, there were a few things that eventually made my bond with Carloe closer. We went to the same after-school daycare (Kid’s Innovation), mixed martial arts class, and orchestra, while William only went to our orchestra class. In orchestra, we all sat in different sections, though. After “extra-work”, or additional pages of work a few steps ahead of the normal curriculum, kids had a lot more freedom to do what they wanted. Carloe and I would rush to see who finished first, along with whoever else sat at our table, and then played games like “Would you rather?” and “Truth or Dare?”. “Would you rather” always ended and started with “Would you rather kiss/marry ____ or would you rather be gay?” That, or the kiss and marry question would repeat twice with different people. Truth or Dare would follow the same lines as love interests. Just uncontrollable, uncomfortable laughter. If we were feeling cocky, we would try to test each other with math problems.

This continued for elementary school until Junior High came. This is when Carloe became more questionable. 6th graders from Elvin and Harvey Brown, along with our school, Horner, combined into the 7th grade of Amsterdam Junior High. He wanted to get to know other people, I guess, but in return, he didn’t spend much time with us. Afterschool was the same, though. Other programs of the same subject weren’t required to combine into one, so Carloe still sat next to me during those extracurricular activities. 

That wasn’t why I started turning away from him. During the middle of the school year, he got bored in class and had the idea of writing something during 4th period. And no, I know he’s the type of guy to just sit down and decide to do something productive. He whispered into my ear, “Hey, who do you like? I have an idea called the gossip book.” I remember it vividly.

And hey, I thought it was a pretty cool idea, initially. In Kid’s Innovation, he whipped out a notebook with a mischievous look. Now, whenever I meet him, he always has that look on his face. Back in the past, he wrote a title at the top in an almost illegible, cursive font: 

The Gossip Book

Even that font is generous… He then immediately started writing our peers’ names and started drawing arrows to them. 

Aaron –→ Amelia

            ♥️

Sophie ←→ Christopher

               ♥️

Julia ←– Everybody In the School

          ♥️

“Who else?” Carloe said.

“Oh yeah, and there’s Mia with BTS -” I said.

“Good one!” Carloe exclaimed, abruptly cutting me off. His grin was getting wider by the second.

“Shivani with Eshon…”

He even put different sections between our daycare and school!

And I have to admit, I was grinning like a maniac, too. Of course, you can’t attract attention, giggling, while huddling up to a single spot in a class full of middle schoolers. In other words, other people began to notice and started giving other ideas, while others angrily refuted what the gossip book claimed. He never listened to any of them — something that would prove to be a nightmare later on. In the end, the gossip book kind of looked like this:

The Gossip Book

Amsterdam Junior High

Z, .xdadcvndfcvkmbgfi0fvdgkm;l bojfxb g3rtg4st e __> \ kljmvdf;jmklbi godlxmvvklf;mkvjclfkx vkxjlfv lknfjmlf;d vmcudgidjvgr,m\kzx;lcvm gfpb;ovc;kfz ;ldfkjlsadjfklsdfalkj;dfslkj;sdf;klsdfak;jlsdflk;fadfs;lfdsf dfs>dfwesc xc

Kid’s Innovation

Nd lkf;svm we;oiweoewiowerwerweiruweoifu sdkovlhjkhxz cxlcxkvpdik4efkm bfei/sdfsdf anmsd,n vjldf,mvvlkjvxcyhukjhkjnhjnhjjnhjkjhnjknhkjhnjknhkjhnkjmnhkjnhjknhjk /ritpeort kjsdf hdfkjlshkjfhsdkjfhkasjdfhkjasdhfkjadshfkjhdaskjflhsadkjfhsadkjfhkjsahdfkd<

I would like to “exaggerate” more, but I can’t remember that well. I will say it looked disgusting. I guess that’s what happens when you put borders before making a plan.

“Alright! Looks like I can start organizing this information!” Carloe stated, with everybody huddling around him. 

“Okay,” I said, along with a few other people after. What I was really in my mind was Howwww. Bro, how can you read this? Then again, I think my font is perfectly legible, but everybody scrutinizes it for being fat and ugly. The crowd began to disband with little giggles, and the teacher began calling back people who didn’t do their extra work. 

The next day, he showed William a refined “Gossip Book”. It was still hard to read, but at least we could. But there was a little detail that I caught. My name! The arrow was drawn to me… 

Richelle –→ Wellesley

                 ♥️

Oh yeah, forgot to mention. My name’s Richelle Chen, and I’m a freshman in high school now. I have a younger brother named Weston in 4th grade. Anyway… 

Now I knew how it felt to be one of those people. A deep feeling of dread hit my heart. And then I realized, how much of this is true? Confirmed by the accused themselves? I had to defend my, and possibly, their reputation. As a pretty shy person, versus a gossipy popular kid? I didn’t want to break my friendship with Carloe, though. I decided to keep quiet, though. All I had to do was steer him away from this idea.

“Most of this is fake,” I stated. 

“Oh really? That means all the information you gave me is also fake?” Carloe said.

“Yeah, I was lying, and spreading rumors. I never actually asked Serena or George if they liked each other or not.” 

“Welp, I’ll put a question mark right there.” He pulled out a pencil and did exactly that.

“Who even told you this?”

“Me,” William said while smirking during the whole conservation. 

“I can’t believe it. Both of you guys are against me? Why Wellesley anyway?” It wasn’t the best I could say, but I just felt so betrayed that my friends would call me out on something obviously false. 

“Well, it’s because both of you guys are so quiet and reserved! Come on, you have to admit that he’s as smart as a successful general! Plus, his name’s similar to your brother’s,” Carloe said, snickering. 

“So? That doesn’t mean…” I trailed off. I knew that they knew, if that makes sense, what I would say next. I couldn’t give a stronger argument other than, “That’s trash reasoning”.

“It’s confirmed!” they said in unison, doing their stupid “shipping” gesture.

However, it didn’t affect me that much. Sure, people who hated me constantly joked about it, especially my brother (who “approved” of it) but I didn’t pay much attention. They threw me around with other people, like Connor and Olivia (yes, they shipped me as lesbian), even writing a satirical diary page in “The Gossip Book” stating how much I loved Olivia and how I dumped Wellesley and Connor. In my memory, it didn’t affect my school life, apart from me blushing a little.

It impacted other more prominent kids, though. For example, Julia was now hated by everybody and was regarded as “sassy and blunt”, while Sophie and Christopher started dating. They liked each other secretly. Almost everybody else hated it and stated the Gossip Book was wrong, however, and it was.

And then it happened. Quarantine. During the middle of the second semester. Due to an unknown virus, unofficially called “the coronavirus” for its shape, to help prevent the spread, multiple precautions and unwritten rules were put in place to stop the spread and prevent another “Spanish Flu” from happening. A little summary of the infamous pandemic: there were almost no formal precautions issued, which led to 500 million being infected and 50 million dead. You can’t entirely blame them for prioritizing the economy over lives — only in recent years have rich countries been able to afford millions to work from home. Remember, the internet and computers wouldn’t exist for decades. That wasn’t even an option for them! 

Our country’s economy took a big hit in the long run, still, which was to be expected. Hundreds of thousands of people who had jobs that required social interaction became unemployed. Poor, populated countries like India took a massive hit. Even rich ones, like the U.S., proved to be caught off-guard by the coronavirus, with, consistently, the highest death toll. The whole world had minor riots and protests against the painfully boring quarantine.

Only YouTube and other platforms were able to keep me barely sane. Of course, I was initially excited that we were able to learn from school. It’s any kids’ dream. Only in 2021 was my mental health starting to wane. It was true that my teachers in 7th grade assigned significantly less homework as we were getting used to online zoom classes. In 8th grade, it was pretty much assumed that everybody knew what they were doing from an early point. I began to procrastinate. The homework didn’t help, either. Although they weren’t projects, which I initially hated, (I’m not the most creative person, okay?) it was endless “busy work” that broke me. If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s easy to understand. Busy work is when teachers put no effort into their homework and questions, likely just assigning copious, straightforward, work. It’s like that 50-questions multiple choice worksheet that I’m sure everybody who’s gone to school has gotten. 

Even as a self-proclaimed introvert, more than one year is my breaking point, even with my family as company. I forgot a lot about my peers during that year and a half. I was only reminded of some through our only yearbook of Horner. When I look back on it, it always surprises me that so many of our classmates had to leave. It’s pretty outdated with this in mind — the year of 2016-2019, when I was in 4th grade and Weston was in kindergarten.

I hadn’t thought about Carloe, or any other of my friends until he texted through my mom’s phone late into quarantine. (around a year in). Then, my heart filled with nervousness, layered with guilt, almost the same as when I saw my name in the gossip book. I hadn’t told him I got a new phone. 

“Hurry up! My phone is the public phone in the family. Everybody uses it!” my mom cried.

“Okay, okay,” I replied. I had to text fast.

Notifications 🔔

Carloe Michelle Chen

hi

The text was a day ago. He probably thought I wouldn’t respond at all.

hey

were going on a field trip.

well, its not really a field trip, but more like a school vacation to Georgia during summer break next year

A field trip? How come I was never informed about this?

oh, lol, can I come?

oh yea, there’s a fee of $5,000

$5,000? My parents are never going to allow this!

Hold on.

wait, what’s your email?

Shoot. I forgot to tell him my personal email too!

its richelle263@gmail.com 

ok

brb

It would be pointless to consult my parents. But I did anyway. 

“$5,000?! Is it really worth it? We already went to Canada, why should we pay that much money just for you? It’s already…” I knew my dad would just babble on about how expensive it is to take care of us, so I didn’t listen. I was already thinking along the same lines as him, anyway. We already went to Georgia with our relatives. There was no point in going there again other than meeting my friends there. Plus, combined with my spring break, it was a quick and easy decision in my mind.

But how was I going to text it? I asked Weston and my mom for advice. Weston just giggled and said, “I dunno.” Unbelievably helpful. My mom said to just say, “Sorry, I can’t.” She explained that too much seemed like an excuse (I didn’t want to make it seem like my parents were cheap anyway) and too little didn’t seem like a formal “apology”. 

So I did that.

Notifications 🔔

Carloe Michelle Chen

???

(I was initially scared that I said something wrong, but he was probably just confused by “brb”.)

sry, i can’t

ok

just checking, we already got william, aaron, Anna, and sarah, tho liam might be in a different hotel room. 

I only saw this message a week later, when my mom showed me it. So I was the "backup”. I didn't tell him my phone number. We never chatted during the rest of quarantine.

.

.

.

Now that our whole district has been vaccinated, we can go back to pre-pandemic life! I’ll predict it will soon be normal and boring as it was, in, let’s say, six months. We’re in high school now. Carloe and William seem so distant now. They’re part of the “popular” kids, as usual, and never get in touch with me. In my opinion, almost all of them are jerks, and the few popular kids that are smart get leeched off of the dumb ones. Carloe’s okay, I guess. He rarely free-loads off of me and William. As of that gossip book thingy, yeah, it’s still going on. Sometimes, he even sits next to the sassy girls’ group to eavesdrop on their conversations. I don’t think it works much, though. Whenever he does try to contact me, it’s about my “love interest”, which I don’t have. I just respond with “... Bro '' We still take the same activities, though Kids Innovation doesn’t support high schoolers. Our martial arts instructor doesn’t pair us up a lot, anyway, so there’s minimal social interaction between us.

You know, writing this makes me nostalgic. I think I’ll try to be friends with him again. He’s a cool guy, I guess, not a delinquent!

Edit: Nevermind. I can’t believe he and his friends offered drugs and cigars to me at his house so casually! Even Bill and I thought he was sensible! Do I really know Carloe and William?